Philosophy

We will conclude our discussion of Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery by Rupert Sheldrake. Sheldrake is known for his theory of morphic resonance, which some consider a pseudo-science in…

We will be starting a new book for this meeting: Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things that Matter (2016) by Peter Singer. This book can be purchased in…

We are reading the book Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things that Matter by Peter Singer. This is the sort of book you can jump around in, so…

We will continue reading Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things that Matter by Peter Singer. This time we will cover the sections on Animals, Politics, and Global…

We will finish our book, Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things that Matter, by Peter Singer. The sections we haven't read yet are Sex and Gender; Doing…

We are going to discuss Plato's dialogue Phaedrus for this meeting. If you don't already have a copy of this dialogue, it is readily available online. Project Gutenburg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1636) has…

We are turning to the topic of philosophy of science with an examination of a book considered a classic in this field: The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper.…

We will start reading one of the most influential books written by a native of Minneapolis, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974), by Robert Pirsig. This…

The next MISF Philosophy Study Group meeting will be in two sessions. Session 1 will be on Monday, January 28, and session 2 will be Wednesday, January 30. Both will…

The MISF Philosophy Study Group scheduled for Wednesday, January 30, has been rescheduled for Wednesday, February 6. It will be at 7:00 pm at Curran's Restaurant in Minneapolis. We will…

The MISF Philosophy Study Group will once again meet in two sessions. Session 1 will be on Monday, February 18, and session 2 will be Wednesday, February 20. Both will…

The MISF Philosophy Study Group will once again meet in two sessions. Session 1 will be on Monday, February 18, and session 2 will be Wednesday, February 20. Both will…

We are going to dip our toe into Martin Heidegger's seminal work, Being and Time. First published in 1927, Being and Time is considered one of the most important philosophy books of the 20th century. This…

We have decided to try a different tack into the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and examine his idea of phenomenology. He disagreed with Edmund Husserl, the person who is most…

We are going to be returning to Being and Time by Martin Heidegger. We will read the first three chapters of Division I of Part I, (through “The Worldhood of the…

For the next couple of meetings we will be reading a book you may already have in your library, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. If you don't have it, you can find it…

We will finish our reading of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. By the time we're done you should be in tune with nature, in the present moment, and ready to become the next…

We will continue our discussion of modern Stoicism by reading the rest of chapter five and chapter six in A New Stoicism by Lawrence Becker. Chapter five completes his discussion of norms…

We are in the process of reading A New Stoicism by Lawrence Becker. He is continuing his arguments that virtue is the only good, at least for psychologically healthy people. Alas, there's…

We will conclude our reading of A New Stoicism by Lawrence Becker. This includes chapter 7, “Happiness,” and a couple of appendices. We are especially interested in having people come who consider…

We are turning to a classic book this time: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. This is a book that should have lots of used copies floating around, or you can…

We are finishing the book The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. While Pollyanna and Dr Pangloss might have some problem understanding Camus' point of view, they – and anyone who feels…

We will be tackling a book by the contemporary Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek,The Parallax View (2006), which he calls his magnus opus. It can be found new in paperback for about $17…

  We will discuss the rest of Part I of The Parallax View by Slavoj Žižek. Admittedly, this book can be a challenge. However, for the MISF Philosophy Study Group, challenge is our name.…

We will continue discussing The Parallax View by Slavoj Žižek, this time covering Part II. In this part Žižek applies his parallax metaphor to science. Reviewers, in general, think that Žižek does his…

We will conclude our discussion of The Parallax View by Slavoj Žižek. This involves reading Part III in which Žižek covers how his philosophy works with politics. Žižek is one of the leading…

For this meeting we have chosen to read a philosophical novel rather than our usual diet of books and articles by philosophers. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) was the last novel written…

Because this is an election year, we have decided to read what many say is the first modern political treatise: The Prince, written in the early 16th century by Niccolò Machiavelli. Being…

Cancelled (to be rescheduled) We will begin a discussion of the book, The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness (revised second edition, 1998) by Simon Wiesenthal. This book consists…

For this meeting we have chosen a book that was very popular some years ago and has managed to retain its popularity. The book is Why Bad Things Happen to Good…

We will begin a discussion of Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages (2004) by Richard E. Rubenstein. This book can be had for under…

  For this meeting we will finish discussing the book Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard E. Rubenstein. We will see…

For this meeting we will begin reading Aldous Huxley's book, The Perennial Philosophy, which proved to be very popular when it was first published in 1945 and remains so in some…

  We will conclude our discussion of the book, The Perennial Philosophy, by Aldous Huxley. At this meeting we will be looking for immanent arguments and comments, the sort that can…

We will be discussing a book by Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and author of the noted book, Man's Search for Meaning. This new book, Say Yes to Life: In Spite…

We are starting a new book, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (2014), by Jennifer Nagel. This book is a part of the Very Short Introduction series by Oxford University. A paperback costs…

We will conclude our book, Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction , by Jennifer Nagel. The last part of the book covers some of the major issues that are currently being debated…

Zoom Link For this meeting we will spend our time discussing Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous by George Berkeley. First published in 1713, it has become a part of the…

Another epistemological classic is on the agenda for this meeting – the first and one that philosophers have had to address in one way or another for twenty-four centuries: Plato's…

For this meeting we are going to have a discussion about aesthetics. We will be using the book Beauty: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton. One can find a new…